
The Trial
Franz Kafka · 1925
Kafka invented a mode of reality that now bears his name. The nightmare that looks like bureaucracy; the system that condemns without explanation. Every modern anxiety about power, legibility, and being trapped in a process you cannot understand: Kafka got there first, in 1925, writing in German in Prague.
Literary Fiction · the Pro canon
The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.